Posted
by
Soulskill
on Wednesday November 28, 2012 @05:32PM
from the must-make-gradeschool-classmates-envious dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Megan Garber reports that the more friends you have on Facebook — or, perhaps more accurately, the more 'friends' you have on Facebook — the more stressed you're likely to be about actually having them. The wider your Facebook network, the more likely it is that something you say or do on the site will end up offending one of that network's members. The stress comes from the kind of personal versioning that is common in analog life — the fact that you (probably) behave slightly differently when you're with your mom than you do when you're with your boss, or with your boyfriend, or with your dentist. A study of over 300 Facebook users found that on average people are Facebook friends with seven different social circles. The most common group was friends who were known from offline environments (97 percent added them as friends online), followed by extended family (81 percent), siblings (80 percent), friends of friends (69 percent), and colleagues (65 percent). Those are, in the sociological sense, very different groups — groups that carry different (and unspoken-because-obvious) behavioral expectations. Per the study's survey, 'adding employers or parents resulted in the greatest increase in anxiety.'"

This makes a ton of sense. There is a natural urge to share the things you care about deeply. Whether you are passionate about the environment, religion's role in society, or a particular conflict - you are bound to have friends who disagree with you. Sometimes passionately. At the same time there is a palpable pressure not to be political on Facebook. So when you (or a friend) posts something polarizing, the attention it gets (or doesn't get) can really stress you out.

Its a shame, especially since political discourse is so very essential to a healthy society - that social sites like Facebook make it even more stressful than it already can be.

The thing is, most of the people on your list already made up their minds who they're going to vote for. By posting political stuff on Facebook, you're alienating a large number of your "friends" to only reach a handful of undecided voters. It's not a good venue for reaching people, given the personal price you pay.

My "friends" happen to be zombies that idle on their FB accounts. They post stupid updates and they pretend they care such as "Twinkies are gone, OMG! Gotta stock up" followed by a picture. I told him off and got lashed at.by my "friends." It doesn't stress me out, I'm completely ticked off by how people fake care about most of the junk they post.

I hardly ever go on mine anymore. It's awful just some of the stupidity that people will post just for a LIKE.

Doesn't Facebook have something like Google+ circles? I thought they added that shortly after Google+ launched...

Anyway, on Google+ I handle this by defining some "topic" circles into which I place people who are annoying about certain topics. Then when I post about those things, I don't include those circles. It'd be nice if I could actually specify "everyone but these" rather than having to manually click the set of circles, but it only takes a second or two with the current UI.

yes, but its a thousand times more difficult to use than in Google plus. Something as simple as draging contacts and droping them into various categories has completly eluded facebook's engineers.

Its death by a billion configurations for every action and every thing you upload/tag/post/poke/etc that were bolted onto a system that originally only had two categories of people (friends, not friends).

"There is a natural urge to share the things you care about deeply."Who says? Do you have any proof of this natural urge?

"Its a shame, especially since political discourse is so very essential to a healthy society."Who says? Do you have any proof of this? The U.S. is obsessed with political discourse to the point of being a dysfunctional society.

I don't need to know every person I ever come in contact with at a deep level. I barely need to know most family members that well. So, I sure as hell don't need to know every detail and thought and view of my neighbors, my UPS delivery guy, the guy I traded business cards with at a conference last year, every person I ever have a conversation with at a bar, every person I interact with online in a community, family members, extended family members, in-laws, friends of friends, and colleagues at that level.

There is value in just knowing that my neighbor is a nice guy and treats me well and that we can rely on each other for help. In trading a friendly smile and a brief conversation with the UPS guy or the person at the bus stop. In getting along with my coworkers and other acquaintances and family members.

I do not need reasons to dislike these people. Their views on politics, religion, science, and current events are not relevant to me. The last thing I need is for the neighbor that I'll spend much or most of my life dealing with to leave me with a bad taste in my mouth, because I see his constant stream of "libtards durp durp durp" and "republithugs durp durp" and "fuckin' pinko communist atheist scientists need to accept that the world is created by gawwwwd" every day.

In other words, there is a great deal of value in obscuring many thoughts and having various levels of interaction with people. I may need to know my potential mate that well. And maybe my closest family members (though not necessarily even that). I do NOT need to know all of that (nor the daily activities) of every other person in my life. They do more harm than good and knowing that someone I deal with on a daily basis holds some pretty repugnant views on the world doesn't improve everything. I can't do anything about it. All it does is colors every interaction I'll have with them in the future.

So, I don't use social networks. If someone has something to tell me, they can call me or email me or even write a letter. I don't need to have them broadcast "at me" constantly. And I don't need to let my view of people be tainted by things that would otherwise NEVER HAVE COME UP IN OUR INTERACTIONS if it weren't for social networks.

I do not need reasons to dislike these people. Their views on politics, religion, science, and current events are not relevant to me. The last thing I need is for the neighbor that I'll spend much or most of my life dealing with to leave me with a bad taste in my mouth, because I see his constant stream of "libtards durp durp durp" and "republithugs durp durp" and "fuckin' pinko communist atheist scientists need to accept that the world is created by gawwwwd" every day.

Mark has famously said that wanting to have multiple identities constitutes a "lack of integrity."

Apparently, to the people running Facebook, you're not allowed to discuss different topics or to use different language with different people. After all, in real life you always talk the same way to the old ladies at church as to the guys at the bar, right? And the same way to your coworkers and boss as to your close friends, right? And the same to your parents as to your spouse in the bedroom, right?

Of course, the reality of this is that Facebook doesn't give a crap about users. They just want to make money off of you. And the more interactions they can track, the more they know about everyone. That's why every so often they seem to expand the default privacy settings to make your information ever more widely available. Every time you "like" a comment, follow a link on your friend's post, etc., that's another datapoint.

But if you restrict most of your posts to only a small group, that's fewer potential datapoints. Not good business for Facebook, who wants to sell your interactions to the highest bidder. If they made it ridiculously easy to have multiple identities or groups so you could interact like everyone does in real life, you're only going to share posts with people you think will already like it. And that's something Facebook probably knows already. They're more interested in making interconnections that could tell more about people than the obvious ones... so they force you to cast the net wider.

Well said. Facebook has no context which is why reactions to a political post may be amplified. In real life you may be at a dinner party where the conversation has moved in the right direction. On Facebook you just throw it out there and hit stressed parents, people who have just lost a loved one, hungover friends, etc. etc. Lots of people who just don't care for your opinion right now and may actively dislike the fact that they saw it. That's why most Facebook posts tend to be of the lowest common de

My wife has an FB account and all they do is post bizarre stuff on her wall and make her feel uncomfortable. I cannot imagine why anyone would want anything to do with FB.

Some of us don't have your wife on Facebook...

Today, I was reminded about an invitation I'd received to a birthday party (the host noticed I hadn't responded), and after an enquiry from another invitee a couple of people have organised sharing a car to the house.

i know what you mean i pretty much only use it for its chat server other wise i would either have to get a dozen different accounts at different sites just to chat with friends i talk to regularly or build my own irc or xmpp chat server and hope my technology illiterate friends can figure out how to log on.i can't remember the last time i even posted something to my own wall.

Facebook only knows what you tell it, with the exception of people who take photos of and tag you without permission. The solution to that is, of course, not to associate with people who don't understand how to ask permission or give basic courtesy.

Highlights from: http://www.storycoloredglasses.com/2010/01/water-water-everywhere-nor-any-drop-to.html [storycoloredglasses.com] "There were three essential reasons I left Facebook after only a short time. First, the privacy issue was big. To begin with, I set up separate accounts for my work and personal selves, which I've read is something many businesspeople are doing. I managed it, but it was an uneasy start, and later I found myself going back to my privacy settings often to check and recheck that I had things properly set. The

Ya, you're right, I'm just sick of the rationale for any political bad behavior being "Yeah, well your side does it, too!" as if that somehow negates the behavior. When one side is claiming to have the morale high ground yet the very people making those claims are doing things that are morally or ethically wrong, it really makes it impossible to listen to what they have to say.

The people who aggravate me the most are the ones who assume that being on "the wrong side" is evil, stupid or backward. Not just one side either and they are easy to spot by the way they spout off about "right wingers" , "repugnicans", "CONservatives" or the opposite site: "liberals", "LIEberals", "communists" etc. In general an extreme view from the wingnuts on both sides that fail to understand that it's possible for two people to both be honest people who love their country while having differing views on how that's done.

Each side has valid points and restricting one's life exclusively to one side without considering the alternative is a recipe for disaster.

This is so true. In fact you have just described your average newspaper site comments section. They are the worst for this. I consider myself at the centre of the political spectrum, right leaning fiscally and left leaning socially. It makes constructive political discourse, everywhere on the internet, pretty much impossible. Has anyone ever found a balanced political discussion forum?

I'm in the same boat. I'm pro-choice, and I don't care about marriage one way or the other (really, I think adults should just be left to make whatever contracts they want with each other). I want the US to have the strongest military in the world (I served in it), but I don't think we need to truck it all over the place, fighting other people's fights. I think we should help poor people, but I think that our definition of "poor" is not precise and our implementation is faulty, so we end up spending hundreds of billions on the wrong people - I think we spent close to a trillion dollars in 2011 on means-tested benefits - while some people are still having to skip meals. I firmly believe we can do a better job helping the truly needy, while spending a lot less.

I want us to be fiscally responsible - maybe deficit spending works to stimulate the economy, and maybe it doesn't; I lean towards the opinion that economic activity is a chaotically complex system and we're kidding ourselves if we think we know with certainty what levers to pull, and what the second and third-order effects will be. But no matter what, at some point we have to pay back this massive chunk of debt, and we can't ignore it and hope that "growth" will save us. I could go on....

Maybe it's that we all feel the need to defend the party we vote for, and to tear down the opposition (whether it's just one party, or multiple). To paraphrase Tyler Durden, you are not the party you voted for. Maybe we all just need to step back and form some opinions of our own that may or may not perfectly align with a particular ideology or party platform.

So true. I'm very complicated with my views. I'm a fiscal centrist, personal conservative but a social libertarian.

Translated: I think the government should balance its budget but still have enough revenue to cover things like health care and social assistance for people who fall on hard times but nudge people out of the social assistance nest (don't pay people to be high school dropouts for the rest of their lives). For my personal life I'm conservative but I don't see where that gets me the right to tell anyone else how to live theirs so drink, smoke, snort, inject whatever you want and marry who you want(as long as your honest about it) but don't expect me to join you and I'm fine with it.

The upshot is that I know a few people who agree with me but the vast majority of people on both sides get pissed off at me a lot although it has led to some amusing incidents involving people being shocked that I'm not going to preach at them about their lifestyles.

The upshot is that I know a few people who agree with me but the vast majority of people on both sides get pissed off at me a lot although it has led to some amusing incidents involving people being shocked that I'm not going to preach at them about their lifestyles.

It's strange.

I share pretty similar views. Much of your views can are essentially "if you're not harming anyone else, do what you want", with a bit extra about social security.

To be fair, "social" used in this context (drawing distinctions between fiscal and social issues) typically refers to controversial social issues that hinge on moral arguments like gay marriage, abortion, assisted suicide, etc. In other words, subjects where the financial component is less important or not at all important.

Taking care of the homeless would fall under fiscal issues in this context since the problem isn't "Do we prefer homeless people to live or to die?" but rather, "Can we afford to pay to k

I said almost the same thing recently, in another venue. I disagree with almost everything the liberals are up in arms about. Does that make them all evil bastards? No - just a bunch of doofuses with whom I disagree. Ditto with the "conservatives". Are they evil, because of their opinions? Again, no - just another bunch of doofuses with whom I disagree.

During the recent campaigns, both sides more or less said that if the other side won, it would spell doom for the United States.

During the recent campaigns, both sides more or less said that if the other side won, it would spell doom for the United States.

I DO happen to think there are some evil bastards on both sides.

Which is absolutely hilarious when you consider that the two candidates really only differed in skin colour. Both candidates were pro choice(even if one pretended he wasn't for the duration of the campaign) and act often referred to as "Obamacare" was similar to something Romney did previously.

The people who aggravate me the most are the ones who assume that being on "the wrong side" is evil, stupid or backward.

Sometimes it's true. e.g. anyone who supports the War on Drug Users is at least one of the above, and probably all three. Is this an assumption? No, I try to get them to explain themselves but every argument in favor of imprisoning drug users comes down to "Drugs are bad, mmkay?". We can't even get the government to make an actual argument against legalization, because there is none,

To be fair, those views tend to be reinforced by the suffering that hard drug use causes and images of skid row and the fear that more people would use them if they were legalized. Wrong? maybe. Evil? definitely not. You can't call the desire to prevent suffering evil even if it's misguided.

The idea is not to compromise on principals, the idea is to chose each on each issue based on it's merit rather than what side you think you are on.

Countries too far to the right are heartless and favor the employer and if you lose your job or end up injured, you starve.Countries too far to the left favor the worker but end up with high taxes, a social system that encourages laziness and and laws that discriminate against employers (Spain for instance is a pain to do business in)

Did this about a year ago, dropped all friends except for a "close" 30 or so; my immediate neighbors, some close friends throughout the years, and family. No coworkers, no friends of friends, no one from HS or college or grad school.

The great thing about growing older is that it no longer stresses me out when my parents find out I'm smoking pot with the neighbors.;)

Scott Adams had a Dilbert cartoon about how you can cut out about half the people in your life and still be produtive and happy. I got rid of some 'friends' that really weren't, sometimes that's what you have to do in order to learn who your real friends are.

I find it's a lot easier to be myself when I maintain an internal locus of identity. If people don't like or at least respect who I am and what I say, why do I count them as my friend? Differences within a social circle can be healthy and rewarding. Altering your behavior to conform to a social precedent is not.

They're obsessive compusives in training. Facebook has them hooked, they care a disproportionate amount about how they are percieved on it. Sometimes you need to turn off the computer and/or the mobile phone and get out and actually socialized with people face to face.

Because for some people it's almost replaced telephone communication. Also it's harder for a girl to ignore a wall post in front of all her friends than a 1on1 text message, there's other reasons... most of them indicative of our society going to hell & us thinking too highly of ourselves to engage in meager face to face conversation. Coincidentally, the amount of mass shootings has gone up considerably in the last decade.

we are a group mostly anonymous people who happen to share a common intrest in science, technology, computers, gameing, hacking, and scifi fantacy games books and movies. where facebook is you annoyin aunt that you cant unfreind without pissing off your family memebers, the girl you met once at a party you coworkers and anyone else you may have thought you met. facebooks iq level is just slightly higher than 4chans iq on april 20th.

Reasons I use Facebook: Events. I haven't found a site that is free, makes it as easy as Facebook does to invite friends and let those friends invite their friends. If you are involved in any kind of theater (especially comedy), this is a very valuable tool.

Does Evite allow you to keep lists of friends, to easily keep inviting them to subsequent events? If you send an invite to your friend Captain Ahab, do you know the Captain will have a ready list of their own friends to invite? Evite.com doesn't provide the same convenience and reach that Facebook does.

It's not about having an identity, it's about what parts of that identity you choose to express, and the appropriate times and places for that. I know a few people who despite being Christian are very nice people, so I don't rant at them about inconsistency in the bible as I know it'll do nothing but aggravate them. I do however like to share funny anti-religious pictures/jokes/whathaveyou with my atheist friends. Having everybody pooled together on Facebook gives me that pause of "is this appropriate for everyone who'll see this?"

It's worse than that. Even if you can manage to separate the different roles (or treat every post like it's completely public as a common denominator), if your friends can't do it too then you can get in trouble for things they post about you

Some people include a lot of family and co-workers in their facebook friends list, this becomes a problem when another friend posts those new year's photos and tags you in them setting visibility to friends of friends... my personal opinion is it's none of their f'in business, but life doesn't always work that way.

I'm generally me, except when I get the urge to make, "like" or share harsh jokes about fat people. There are a couple of people that I may offend. About half my friends are religious though, and I openly post things making fun of religion at times. Weird.

If you don't modify your behavior to the social context you're in, then you're the strange one. A working relationship is not the same as a friendship which is not the same as a relationship which is not the same as blood ties (well, hopefully not) which is not the same as old classmates and whatever else is on the Facebook list. Even in the cases where there's some "broadcast" news to announce to absolutely everyone I probably wouldn't tell everyone in the same way with the same level of detail. In real li

Because unless you're a sociopath, you need to have some degree of concern what people think of you. Can you honestly say that you behave the same way with your wife/girlfriend/boyfriend as you do with your boss or your mum or your grandma? When you're alone do you do things you wouldn't do in public? If not, then why not? Because you care what other people think about you even if you don't want to admit it.

If Facebook didn't exist, I wouldn't be stressed about it at all. Instead, we get all these stupid stories about this website and stuff. That stresses the shit out of me. The fact that people think I should be using this privacy sucking tool of evil also stresses me. But having friends on that website? Well, I don't use it, so that doesn't stress me.

Also, this is something that people on/. have been saying for ages. It's one of the reasons that Google Plus is meant to be wonderful. (I wouldn't know, I don't use it either.) Being able to separate work friends from pub friends from high school friends from family seems like a pretty obvious requirement.

The idea of forgetfulness is another thing. If I say something stupid down at the pub, my workmates aren't likely to find out about it. The other patrons of the pub are likely to forget about it before too long as well (unless it was particularly stupid). But on the Internet...

Gee, anyone else have any obvious differences between the Internet and RL?

Be glad you don't have a teenage daughter whose entire social circle revolves around her fb account. I've seen it and if she were my daughter we'd have a talk about only getting to use the stupid thing on weekends. Go out and visit with your friends in real life, rather than sweating over what will next pop up on your screen.

Everyone goes through the phase where one learns (or not) the difference between persistent public communication, and forgetful (I'm glad you used this term) communication.

IRC is forgetfulTelnet chats are forgetfulIMs and VOIP can be forgetful, depending on the service.

The caveat is that everything that is over the internet can be logged by one of the participating parties, but in general, the default is no logging for these services.

Everything that is a modern version of email, usenet, and BBSes are not forgetful. The default is that everything is a "permanent." It was laughable that people got their panties in a twist when DejaNews suddenly showed up - as if nobody ever saved usenet posts for fun and profit before DejaNews existed. The hand-wringing over FB and other persistent communication is just more of the same.

The people who can't distinguish between these services are the ones who have a problem.

I have the advantage in that I learned this shit back in the 80s.

>IRL

Wait... wait... with the availability of cameras everywhere, even embedded into eyeglasses with direct upload to Internet services, I have to say that your assumed "forgetful" drunken conversation down at the pub about how you lust after Justin Bieber, after ten gin gimlets, is going to be archived for fun and profit, for all posterity.

I know all about bots. We had them in telnet chats back in the 90s. But the *default* is no bots. If you are paranoid, tunnel ytalk or home-rolled voip over ssh. But while even that leaves one open to the person on the other end logging, the default is much more forgetful than the default modes of a web forum, usenet, blog, bbs, etc.

I tend to just say whatever I want and let people delete me if needed. I probably don't need to be friends with all my aunts and 8yo cousins. When some debate arises, I don't mind; I just win. All the work friends probably keep me from posting too many pot legalization videos and such, but that's what Tumblr is for.

Debates are not about winning, they are about airing ideas. What happens when you win? Someone else is now forced to follow your mode of thought? You get to treat them like shit? What is winning in this context?

Debates are a chance to reality check your ideas. Each person will still go away thinking whatever they want to think regardless of who won.

Seriously, I don't give a rat's patoot that someone is trying to get ahold of my, tagged me or replied to something I said. If I feel like visiting fb I will, but I'm no slave to it and the more it pesters me the more I consider linking the stupid thing to a deal letter email box.

This is exactly why Google+ has a feature called circles. Given the audience here i'm sure I don't have to go into details.

Unfortunately tho, Google+ hasn't really caught on outside some specific groups such as photographers. As well, while the tech savvy have no issues migrating to yet another social network, the problem is your not going to get most of your 'friends' and family to do so. I'm lucky my mom is on facebook, let alone trying to get her to move to Google+.

Since I live away from most of my family I use facebook to upload pictures of the kids, keep in touch etc. So as long as even a few of them stay on facebook then i'm not going anywhere anytime soon.

So given that, I basically treat facebook as a public bulletin board. I don't say or post anything there that I would be ashamed of saying in front of my mom or boss.

GEORGE: Ah you have no idea of the magnitude of this thing. If she is allowed to infiltrate this world, then George Costanza as you know him, ceases to exist! You see, right now, I have Relationship George, but there is also Independent George. That's the George you know, the George you grew up with -- Movie George, Coffee shop George, Liar George, Bawdy George.

JERRY: I, I love that George.

GEORGE: Me Too! And he's dying Jerry! If Relationship George walks through this door, he will kill Independent George! A George, divided against itself, cannot stand!

I hardly post anything to mine. In fact I don't think I've posted a status since I joined back in 2007.

However, I probably get more stressed reading other people's pages and comparing my boring life to them.

Once I start feeling bad I try to remind myself that I'm comparing my life lows to their highlight reel.

I'm willing to bet your life isn't *that* boring. At least five of my "friends" post photos of their meals, and one relative posted every title he rented on Netflix until I finally turned off his news feed. (He apparently watches a *lot* of TV...) How boring could your life be, in comparison to that?

Given the history of usenet negative and troll postings as a rule of thumb... its the lack of a dislike and a "fuck you" button that causes peoples frustration to build up inside... (no vent release)...

Given the history of usenet negative and troll postings as a rule of thumb... its the lack of a dislike and a "fuck you" button that causes peoples frustration to build up inside... (no vent release)...

There is some truth to that. I guess my response would be, a well thought-out verbal poke in the right place might get a much more satisfying reaction than just punching a "you're a damned dirty troll" button.

I will note that the more "friends" you have, the more likely it is that whatever you write has a correspondingly increasing likelihood of offending *someone*. So why not just embrace it? Less stress. There, solved it for you.

Amen. My life is quite nice without an account on FB. My fiancee deleted hers just after the most recent US presidential election, as she got tired of all the posts claiming that "this is it - the world is now going to end, our country will become 100% socialist and fall apart" etc. She, too, is less stressed/annoyed without one. It's not very hard to survive cutting the cord.

...is debunking, with references, all the crap forwards my "friends" Share in their data stream.

I mean geeze, it takes less than 60 seconds to find three references that the "carjacker leaves leaflet on your back window" thing is a hoax, or that quote from Thomas Jefferson was four words taken out of context in a passage that means the exact opposite. But people whine "it's too hard to check and if it helps just one person it's worth hitting 'Share'". No, it really isn't. Snopes. Learn it, use it, live it.

Every once in awhile I post a picture of an open front door with "Hit 'Share' if you know what this is and how to use it". Yeap, you're right, I'm not terribly popular with some types of people.

I think there are people who are stressed, and people who cause stress. I'm proud to be one of the latter category.:-)

Facebook is a social outlet that acts as a microcosom for real life. The people I know that stress over facebook also stress over vauge text messages that might mean something negative, gossip, and what other people might be saying about them behind their backs. They also add more freinds because their level of insecurity goes down when the other person clicks "accept friend request."

I also know people with a thousand or more friends who never get stressed in cyberspace or otherwise. They always post some j

I solved those issues long ago by behaving in the same way for all social circles. I've set for myself what I think are acceptable and honorable behavior patterns and abide by them always. Take it, or just leave me alone, it's that simple. That includes my friends, co-workers, parents, and just about anyone I know. It means I have to restrict myself a bit, but it also means I'm essentially a better person.

I solved those issues long ago by behaving in the same way for all social circles. I've set for myself what I think are acceptable and honorable behavior patterns and abide by them always. Take it, or just leave me alone, it's that simple. That includes my friends, co-workers, parents, and just about anyone I know. It means I have to restrict myself a bit, but it also means I'm essentially a better person.

++++++++++ this.

If you're being stressed or shocked by the behaviour or social expectations of your Facebook friends (and you used the site as it's designed, ie, you friended people you actually know rather than a bunch of random strangers to get game points), then you either have terrible friends, or you have terrible social skills. Either way, it's a social problem, not a Facebook problem, and the solution is likely going to be a social one.

I was on facebook... and had several "incidents" Finally, this hippy friend of my wife started doing this psychedelic artwork that she was making prints of and selling on some art website. Don't get me wrong, she was really talented, and the art was pretty good. But she's a hippie and a pothead, so when she posted a particularly ridiculous 60's looking psychedelic painting and linked it on facebook, I went to the site, took the imagine, Photoshopped a pot leaf into the middle of it and re-posted it with "There, I fixed it for you." She replied "You're a jerk" Which could have been mad... could have been funny... hard to tell on facebook but oh-well.

Well, it didn't end there. You see, in order to up the photo, for some reason I had to host it online. I can't remember why... anyways, so I just used the same art print auction site that she did. Well, my version of her print skyrocketed on the sites charts in a matter of a day or 2. I hadn't expected that at all, and wasn't really sure what to do. So I sent her the credentials to the bogus account I had made and told her to take it over so she could get all the proceeds. I didn't want to me making money off a joke version of her art. SHE DID NOT TAKE IT WELL. To say the least. I thought the money would have made her happy, but you'd think I'd killed her puppy.

I no longer use facebook. After about 6 months she finally was willing to come to our house again, walked in the door and said "We shall never speak of it again" and we didn't. I wonder how much money it made her...

I have over 100 friends on facebook. With just a couple exceptions, all of them are real acquaintances or friends, people who I would deliberately talk to if I ran into them on the street, and vice versa. In spite of this, facebook only stresses me out in the same way that face to face interaction does, when I get in an argument with someone. But I would get into the same argument with them if we spoke in person, so is that really facebook?

Mainly when it over stuff I say. Generally people take it wrong, and get worked up over it, and I find it amusing.

Someone is always going to get mad, or disagree with what you are saying. And thanks to modern technology, it's even easier to get everyone's opinions and beliefs on matters. While it's harder to ignore, you just need to exercise some self control and let it go.

If you don't like what I say, good. If it makes you mad, even better. If you want to kill me because of it, sweet! I'm in

iirc any one in a group though can add anyone else to said group so do to the wonder of six degrees of separation a group of a few friends will end up including everyone on facebook in short order making your grouping pointless